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The Black Bird Oracle
A Novel
0 of 4 copies available
Wait time: About 5 weeks
“The Black Bird Oracle deftly explores the nexus of memory, history, and parenthood—the magic, pain, and promises mothers pass onto their children.”—Jodi Picoult
Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, an Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clermont in A Discovery of Witches. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two otherworldly beings found themselves at the center of a battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Since then, they have fallen in love, traveled to Elizabethan England, dissolved the Covenant between the three species, and awoken the dark powers within Diana’s family line.
Now, Diana and Matthew receive a formal demand from the Congregation: They must test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Pip and Rebecca. Concerned with their safety and desperate to avoid the same fate that led her parents to spellbind her, Diana decides to forge a different path for her family’s future and answers a message from a great-aunt she never knew existed, Gwyneth Proctor, whose invitation simply reads: It’s time you came home, Diana.
On the hallowed ground of Ravenswood, the Proctor family home, and under the tutelage of Gwyneth, a talented witch grounded in higher magic, a new era begins for Diana: a confrontation with her family’s dark past and a reckoning for her own desire for even greater power—if she can let go, finally, of her fear of wielding it.
In this stunning new novel, grand in scope, Deborah Harkness deepens the beloved world of All Souls with powerful new magic and long-hidden secrets, and the path Diana finds at Ravenswood leads to the most consequential moments yet in this cherished series.
* This audiobook edition comes with a downloadable PDF including a family tree.
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Creators
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Series
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Publisher
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Release date
July 16, 2024 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593909249
- File size: 491124 KB
- Duration: 17:03:09
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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July 15, 2024
Bestseller Harkness carries the contemporary fantasy world of her All Souls series (after 2018’s Time’s Convert) into a new generation with this messy adventure. Pip and Becca, the seven-year-old hybrid vampire-witch twins of New England witch Diana Bishop and French vampire geneticist Matthew de Clermont, are due to be examined for their own eerie talents by the shadowy Congregation. Diana, fearful for them and anxious yet eager to expand her own higher-magic powers, is summoned by ravens to meet her father’s relatives in Ravenswood, near Ipswich, Mass., where she and her children endure occult meetings with assorted family ghosts. She also receives magical tarot coaching from Great-Aunt Gwyneth and battles inimical local witch Meg. Matthew, previously the series’ wolfish romantic lead, here subsides into a supportive househusband so that Diana, fueled by rabid curiosity and sluiced with endless tea, can pursue her supernatural vocation. There’s little heat for romantasy fans to latch onto, and the payoff of the twins’ testing is made to wait for future installments. Readers will wish they had an annotated family tree to understand the tangled web of Diana’s relations. The result is ambitious, long-winded, and a bit of a muddle. -
Narrator Jennifer Ikeda reintroduces listeners to power couple Diana and Matthew de Claremont, witch and vampire, and their equally magical children. The couple first appeared in A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES. When a black bird brings Diana a message, she heads to Ravenswood, her Aunt Gwyneth's property in Massachusetts, to uncover the dark side of her magic. Ikeda brings every corner of Ravenswood to life, pointing out its marshes, barns, and haunted woods in warm, wondrous tones. Every creature--whether human, witch, vampire, demon, or specter--has a unique voice, and conversations are always clear for listeners, even when Harkness's story falters. Fans of the novels will relish Ikeda's verbal world-building and character profiles. Her narration illuminates the shadowy paths Diana now chooses to tread. C.A. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine -
March 7, 2025
In Harkness's fifth novel in the "All Souls" series (following Time's Convert), twins Pip and Rebecca, children of Diana Bishop and Matthew de Clairmont, are due for their magical abilities assessment. On the day the family gets the summons from the Congregation that the twins are ready for their test, a group of blackbirds delivers a message to Rebecca, telling her to come home. Subsequently, Diana also gets a mysterious letter to return home. Diana travels to Ravenswood, the Proctor family home near Ipswich, MA, where she uncovers secrets about her family's shadowy history. While there, she must undergo several trials to prove she is worthy of practicing higher magic while learning that Rebecca carries her own special talents. Narrator Jennifer Ikeda offers a strong performance, using appropriate inflections and skillfully setting the tone. Whether witches, demons, vampires, or ghosts, the characters are readily distinguishable, and the back-and-forth of conversations is easy to follow. While series fans will enjoy meeting new characters, they will also be delighted to connect with familiar favorites in this novel that is infused with a warm sense of home. VERDICT Fans of Harkness's beloved series will be well satisfied with this beautifully built world and its ever-growing characters.--Autumn West
Copyright 2025 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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